Approach
The title of the book refers to a self-description by Smith, "I a rough stone. The sound of the hammer and chisel was never heard on me nor never will be. I desire the learning and wisdom of heaven alone." Bushman is the author of many books on early American cultural and religious history, and his own religious and academic background enables him to locate Joseph Smith in the cultural context of early nineteenth-century America.
Although the five-hundred eighty-four page biography (with additional extensive notes and documentation) does not avoid controversial aspects of Smith's life and work, such as his practice of polygamy and his youthful treasure-seeking, it treats them cautiously, and as Bushman himself admits, with "greater tolerance for Smith's remarkable stories than most historians would allow." Rough Stone Rolling makes use of much recent research and is the most complete biography of Joseph Smith published to date.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
Famous quotes containing the word approach:
“A novel which survives, which withstands and outlives time, does do something more than merely survive. It does not stand still. It accumulates round itself the understanding of all these persons who bring to it something of their own. It acquires associations, it becomes a form of experience in itself, so that two people who meet can often make friends, find an approach to each other, because of this one great common experience they have had ...”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“This is an approach to that universal language which men have sought in vain.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)